Miliband: Labour members 'let down'

David Miliband acknowledged that Labour members felt let down by the leadership

David Miliband has acknowledged that Labour members felt let down by the leadership as he sought to reach out to the party's rank and file.

The shadow foreign secretary set out plans to "reconnect" the party's upper echelons with its activists if he succeeds in his bid to take over from Gordon Brown as Labour leader.

He announced his ambition to double the party's dwindling membership, currently about 156,000, and turn Labour into a "movement for change".

In a speech at the Methodist Central Hall in Westminster, Mr Miliband outlined a string of proposals to re-energise the party after its defeat on May 6.

They include allowing Labour members to elect the party chairman; launching a "find-a-friend" campaign to double Labour's membership; training Labour Party members to become community organisers; and maintaining, in opposition, the requirement for the Labour leader to have weekly meetings with a committee of backbench MPs.

Mr Miliband said: "We are at a very, very important moment.

"Instead of the leadership being ashamed of the membership the membership feels let down by the leadership, and it's really important that those of us in a leadership position understand that.

"A fundamental part of correcting that is to reconnect the leadership with the membership, and that's why I want this movement for change to be one about communities but also about changing the Labour Party."

Mr Miliband is the bookies' favourite to win the Labour leadership and is one of only three MPs formally nominated to take part. The others are his brother Ed Miliband, the shadow energy secretary, and shadow education secretary Ed Balls.

Andy Burnham, the shadow health secretary, is still 12 nominations short of the 33 required to advance to the ballot stage. Left-wingers John McDonnell, on 10 nominations, and Diane Abbott, on seven, look increasingly likely to crash out of the contest when nominations close on Wednesday.